A sort of roller coaster atmosphere pervades Damascus these days with “good” and “bad” news rising and falling, often by the quarter hour. Much of the population is monitoring closely the news and quickly expressing their interpretations of the latest media reports and rumors as well as predicting the fairly precise timing of the now assumed American attack on their country.

For those of us living in a land of economic austerity and political atrophy, seeing a country demonstrate that there is an alternative remains an indispensible component of our long-term struggle to rejuvenate our society.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: American High School Textbooks Perpetuate The Big Lie

This summer the world will pause to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most Americans are still supportive of Truman’s decision despite overwhelming historical evidence the bomb had “nothing to do with the end of the war,” in the words of Major General Curtis E. LeMay.

Some students and I had an exchange with NSA recruiters today. The audio and a rough transcript below.

The NSA came to recruit at a language program at the University of Wisconsin where I am spending my summer learning a language. Two recruiters, a redhead who looked more like a middle-aged mother (listed as “NSA_F” below) and a portly, balding man (“NSA_M”), began to go through slides explaining the NSA and its work.

I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support.

GR Editor’s Note: The Testimony of the Tsarnaev Brothers’ Mother as well as media reports confirm that the two brothers were on the FBI Radar, under FBI surveillance for several years. The Tsarnaev family had been the object of persistent harassment. (M. Ch.)

This afternoon president Maduro said the opposition’s call for a general strike today had “failed”. He also blamed the losing candidate in Sunday’s elections, Henrique Capriles, for the seven deaths last night.

The Peoples’ Assembly will meet in London on June 22, where thousands of those opposing the Coalition’s cuts will gather to work out a strategy to defeat austerity, and by implication, the government. Waiting till a 2015 election is hardly an option. It would be to allow more irreparable damage to be done. And many people, way beyond the radicalleft, will be wary of assuming that an Ed Miliband government, without strong pressure from below, will do much to alleviate the collective suffering caused by austerity. Continue reading this...

This observer lost count more than a year ago of the sheer number of predictions by analysts and lobbyists that the “tipping point” signaling the Assad government’s collapse was a sure thing and would happen any time now. “It’s just a matter of days, not weeks” President Obama declared back in 2011.